XMTP
Over 7.6k subscribers
Privacy is under attack. Governments worldwide are demanding access to private communications. Centralized messaging services are giving in by surrendering user data, discontinuing privacy features, or exiting markets entirely.
XMTP is building a different future: truly private, censorship-resistant communication that no government, company, or individual can compromise—powered by an economically sustainable network that rewards those who maintain it.
Since 2021, XMTP has pioneered decentralized, end-to-end encrypted messaging for web3. Today, the need for this infrastructure is more urgent than ever—not just for web3, but for people everywhere whose fundamental rights to private communication and free expression are under direct threat.
The centralized model continues to fail globally:
China pressured Apple to surrender iCloud data to government-controlled servers, allowing authorities to access user files without encryption keys. (NYT, 2021).
India proposed rules requiring WhatsApp to expose users by tracing forwarded messages, potentially exposing critics and suppressing anonymous speech for 400 million users. (Reuters, 2021).
Western governments pushed anti-encryption laws like the US EARN IT Act and UK Online Safety Bill, threatening to criminalize strong encryption (EFF, 2023).
France targeted Telegram in August 2024 by detaining its founder for 96 hours, exposing the vulnerability of platforms dependent on a single decision-maker. (Reuters, 2024).
Turkey and Russia banned Discord in October 2024 for refusing to hand over user messages, cutting off millions and silencing political organizing (Reuters, 2024).
The UK forced Apple to disable Advanced Data Protection for iCloud backups, leaving future backups accessible to authorities for 30 million users. (The Verge, 2025).
The truth is inescapable: strong encryption is meaningless if the infrastructure isn't decentralized. Companies with the best intentions and strongest encryption still face an impossible choice when governments apply pressure: compromise user privacy or face legal consequences.
XMTP represents a radical departure from this failed model. Our approach is built on three pillars that together create a messaging system no government, company, or individual can control or compromise.
Secure, audited encryption
We implement IETF-standard protocols with end-to-end protection that keeps your messages private. Our 2024 security audit by NCC Group—the same firm that audits Signal and WhatsApp—validates the implementation in our core library, LibXMTP.
Full-stack transparency
Our code is open source and available for public inspection. We don't ask for trust; we invite verification. Every component of our system can be reviewed, from client-side encryption to node operations.
Sustainable global decentralization
Our mainnet will distribute XMTP across 20+ independent entities spanning multiple continents and legal jurisdictions, creating a network resistant to censorship and eliminating single points of failure. This network runs on direct economic incentives — not donations that eventually dry up or advertising that depends on harvested user data.
The need for a censorship-resistant messaging network has never been more urgent—and it's here now. XMTP is operational, developers are building on it, and the transition to fully decentralized infrastructure is in motion.
XMTP now secures private communication for millions worldwide. Major applications like Coinbase Wallet, Family Wallet, Lens, ENS, and Unstoppable Domains have integrated the protocol. As of January 2025, over 2.2 million identities communicate securely through XMTP, with more than 1 billion messages processed since launch.
What began as web3's messaging layer has evolved into essential infrastructure. XMTP powers new applications by enabling secure, private connections between wallets, communities, and dapps:
Decentralized notifications for onchain events
Community DAOs with private voting and coordination
Marketplaces with direct buyer-seller communication
Censorship-resistant social platforms
Case in point: In Q4 2024, Notifi used XMTP to deliver over 250,000 critical DeFi alerts to users across Coinbase Wallet, Family Wallet, and Lens apps. These alerts from platforms like GMX, Plume, and Vertex not only kept users informed of important events, but drove significant engagement and retention. Today, over 20 dapps broadcast alerts through XMTP's permissionless infrastructure, demonstrating its value beyond direct messaging.
This infrastructure is becoming as fundamental to web3 as blockchain itself. It expands what's possible without centralized intermediaries standing between users.
XMTP provides industry-leading security with developer-friendly tools. At our core is LibXMTP, a Rust implementation of the IETF's Messaging Layer Security standard that delivers the same forward secrecy and post-compromise security as Signal and WhatsApp. Its security has been verified through a comprehensive audit by NCC Group—the same firm that audits Signal and WhatsApp.
Developers access this secure foundation through reliable SDKs for every major platform:
This unified approach ensures security updates happen in one place and propagate everywhere, while Rust's performance optimizations enable efficient handling of cryptographic operations across all platforms.
Developers get everything needed for modern messaging: direct messages, group chats, reactions, replies, push notifications, disappearing messages, multimedia attachments, and block/allow lists. We're also adding backups, history sync, message removal, and editing capabilities soon.
Our team maintains comprehensive documentation and examples for every feature, while continually improving performance and reliability.
XMTP launched its decentralized testnet on February 6, 2025—a critical step toward true censorship resistance. This marks the beginning of our transition away from centralized infrastructure to a network no single entity can control.
Leading organizations including a16z Crypto, Alchemy, Coinbase, ENS, Faction, and Mask are already running testnet nodes. These early operators are validating the network's performance, stress-testing its capacity, verifying message delivery speeds, and ensuring the infrastructure can reliably scale to millions of users.
This testnet is more than a technical milestone—it's the foundation for a communication network immune to the pressures that have compromised every centralized messaging service.
Our mission for 2025 is clear: launch the world's first fully decentralized, economically sustainable messaging network. We will process 1 billion messages while maintaining the highest standards of privacy, security, and user experience.
We're targeting these key results:
Deploy mainnet with 20+ node operators across 10+ legal jurisdictions.
Process 1 billion messages through decentralized infrastructure.
Maintain 99.99% reliability with <10ms median response time.
Support groups of 1,000+ members without performance degradation.
Expand beyond crypto wallets with passkey account support.
Drive per message costs below $0.001 through technical optimizations, showing progress towards order-of-magnitude reductions.
These are the major pillars of our plan to make this vision reality:
In H2 2025, XMTP will launch the world's first truly censorship-resistant messaging network. For the first time, developers will have access to the highest standard of secure messaging—MLS with forward secrecy and post-compromise security—on resilient decentralized infrastructure.
This launch represents two fundamental shifts in how secure messaging works:
Distributed infrastructure: Rather than relying on servers controlled by a single company, messages will flow through a network of independent operators spread across multiple countries and jurisdictions.
Jurisdictional resilience: With no single point of control, the network becomes resistant to regulatory pressure that has compromised other messaging platforms.
Economic sustainability: Node operators will be directly compensated for securing and delivering messages, creating a self-sustaining ecosystem that doesn't depend on advertising or donations.
The technical foundation for this vision includes two complementary systems working together:
The XMTP Appchain: Built on Arbitrum Orbit and settling to Base, this layer-3 blockchain provides the secure, consistent ordering of messages essential for group conversations.
The Broadcast Network: A high-performance system optimized for low-latency message delivery, ensuring conversations remain responsive and natural.
Our deployment strategy prioritizes both performance and resilience. We're targeting a network that delivers messages with 99.99% reliability while maintaining response times below 10ms. By launch, we'll have at least 20 node operators across multiple continents and legal jurisdictions, with a significant portion operated by non-profit entities to ensure the network remains resistant to coordinated pressure.
A decentralized network demands a sustainable economic model that aligns incentives across all participants. With mainnet, XMTP will introduce a fee-based system that compensates node operators while keeping messaging affordable for applications.
The economic model balances three key priorities:
Affordability for developers: Keeping costs predictable while pursuing radical cost reductions, starting at $0.001 per message.
Sustainability for node operators: Ensuring fair compensation for infrastructure and operational costs
Network resilience: Creating incentives that maintain service quality during varying demand
To achieve these priorities, the fee structure includes three components:
Base Message Fee: A fixed cost applied to every message that ensures baseline compensation for operators
Storage Fee: Variable charge based on message size and retention period that aligns costs with actual resource usage
Congestion Fee: Dynamic pricing that increases during periods of high network demand to maintain quality of service
Governance Framework
The governance structure is designed to distribute decision-making power while protecting the network from capture. It includes mechanisms for security oversight, protocol parameter adjustments, and community-driven technical improvements to the protocol.
The upcoming XMTP Whitepaper will provide complete details on these systems and our long-term plan for sustainability.
Developers need a clear, low-friction path to the decentralized network. We're minimizing disruption with a two-phase transition plan, with most breaking changes consolidated into a single, stable v3 SDK release available on March 14, 2025.
Phase 1: Protocol Upgrade (March-May 2025)
March 13, 2025: Stable release of all v3 SDKs and documentation
May 1, 2025: Deadline for apps to upgrade; deprecation of legacy SDKs and the v2 network
Phase 2: Mainnet Transition (H2 2025)
SDK update with mainnet payer support
Final transition to the fee-based model
Developer Support
To ensure a smooth transition, we provide:
Migration guides and code examples for all platforms
Direct engineering assistance through dedicated channels
Compatibility testing tools for verification
Economic Support
Our highest priority after mainnet launch is driving messaging costs down as low as possible. In the meantime, we're bridging the transition with::
Automatic rebates: All developers receive initial fee reductions to ease the transition
Grant programs: Additional support for qualifying public goods and early-stage projects
Cost management tools: Utilities to estimate, monitor, and optimize messaging costs
These measures ensure developers can plan for the transition while maintaining economically viable applications for their users.
Decentralization sets XMTP apart — but modern messaging features are table stakes for user adoption. Here’s how we’ll advance the core protocol in the year ahead:
Performance at scale
We're optimizing message delivery speed and efficiency in groups up to 1,000 members—making XMTP suitable for larger groups without compromising security or user experience.
Modern messaging features
We're expanding supported content types and introducing secure backups that give users control over their message history without compromising privacy.
Quantum resistance
Government agencies are already harvesting encrypted messages to decrypt later when quantum computers become viable. We're developing quantum-resistant protocol enhancements with our partner OpenMLS, preparing to implement them as standards mature and costs decrease.
Read about message security ->
Global censorship resistance requires universal access. Adding passkey support will make XMTP available to anyone with a smartphone—not just crypto wallet users.
This expansion creates a flexible identity system combining the best of both approaches:
Universal accessibility: Anyone with a smartphone can create an account
Cryptographic verification: All identities verified through secure digital signatures
Cross-chain compatibility: Support for Bitcoin, Solana, and other signature systems
Privacy by design: No phone numbers or global identifiers—users can create unlimited unlinkable identities
This initiative dramatically expands XMTP's potential user base while maintaining the same security and privacy guarantees that crypto wallet users enjoy today.
While decentralization is our primary focus, we're also exploring two high-impact opportunities:
AI agents are revolutionizing crypto accessibility, helping users swap, trade, and manage assets through natural language. As millions of automated entities join messaging networks, we need new infrastructure to support their safe, reliable operation.
The XMTP community has already begun standardizing secure agent transactions through XIP-58: Agent Transaction Format. We’re also exploring:
Proof-of-humanity systems to distinguish human users from automated agents.
A decentralized framework for establishing agent trustworthiness
Developer-friendly tools for implementing new “agent experience” patterns consistently across apps
These explorations will help create a secure foundation for the agent economy while maintaining XMTP's commitment to privacy and censorship resistance.
Many crypto communities are seeking more secure communication platforms. Supporting large communities with tens or hundreds of thousands of members presents unique technical challenges that go beyond XMTP’s current capabilities. We're investigating how encryption needs differ between small groups and large communities—where privacy expectations and threat models vary significantly.
We’re also exploring:
Role-based administration for community management
Broadcast channels for efficient 1:many announcements
Group hierarchy
Content moderation that don’t rely on privacy backdoors
Discoverability for public groups and communities
As regulatory pressure on communication platforms increases globally, building these capabilities has become an important long-term priority. Our goal is to provide an alternative that delivers both the features communities need and the privacy protection they deserve.
Privacy can't wait. Governments continue to demand backdoors, and messaging apps continue to respond by surrendering user data, discontinuing privacy features, or exiting markets entirely. The evidence is clear and the pattern is predictable.
XMTP offers the solution: messaging that no authority can compromise. The technology exists today. The roadmap is clear. We need you to help build this future.
Join the movement:
Run a node to strengthen the network
Build an app that gives users true privacy
Join our community to shape the future of private messaging
Throughout history, communication technology has been a cornerstone of human freedom. Join us in ensuring the next generation of messaging is built to protect that freedom, not compromise it.
